Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Protesting the Republicans (pictures)

The Republican National Convention (RNC) came to my state, and thought that we were just going to sit back and let that happen. Nope. We were going to make signs, march, yell things and protest. So we did, and I did.

The nights before the convention I created my McBush outfit. Claws, two headed Bush McCain devil heads. The suit.We chanted "stop using fear!" when we passed groups of police holding weapons. Most of them were behind fences, holding tear gas bazookas or batons. The cops were everywhere. I saw hundreds of them, most in full riot gear. The protest was extremely well organized and quite peaceful. The four hours I spent protesting I did not see any damage of property or violence of any kind. Apparantly the Anarchists after we went home did some damage and arrests were made. Too bad they made it out to be worse than it was on the news. Only a handful of young kids did any damage, the rest of the 20 thousand protesters did it in a very organized manner.I convinced Kelsey to go with me on Wednesday night, to find all the protesters off at a Rage Against the Machine concert. Kelsey and myself were able to walk right up to the convention with the McBush outfit and mingle with the crowds leaving the convention. Many people seemed very positive about my costume and even a few republicans took their picture with me. It was actually a very positive experience. There was also some people who saw the McBush with the horns that prayed to themselves and some who shook their head. One drunk guy talked to me for 20 minutes about how dumb my costume was and eventually tried to invite Kelsey and myself to Rudy Juliani's after party. We declined.

In the whole experience, everyone seemed to be suprisingly pleasant about the whole ordeal from Republicans to cops and innocent bystanders on the bus. Stop McBush!

The white cat lady was a protester, who gave me an empty suit Norm Coleman flower. I also had a NOT NORM sticker on my back.

3 comments:

Hi, I missed this post the first time around, and I want to say...GOOD FOR U! I followed all the outside activities at the RNC and was amazed by some of the police brutality. If I had been in the area, you can be sure I'd have been there too!